How To Train A Hamster

Hi. My name's Marie. I'm the deputy manager of the Small Animal Department of Wood Green Animal Shelters in Cambridge here and I'm going to advise you how to care for hamsters.

Syrian hamsters are really intelligent and do love to learn new things. Make sure their accommodation is as large as you can afford and it's filled with lots of enrichment. One of the best and easiest things is to be able to train them to be able to go back in their cage if you've got them free-ranging in a small room.

If you've got a small room that's completely enclosed and has got no gaps, you could place the hamster cage in there and let them have free range time in the evenings in that room. The best way for a hamster to train is use treats and this way, they'll associate you with treats and that it's a reward for them to come back to do something. If you've got a large hamster cage like this, you can either have a mesh on the top or a mesh on the side.

You can place a ladder there and they will get used to your noise. What a good thing to do is when you're handling your hamster, have a treat that they might enjoy, so something like a mealworm or even a little bit of mint. Hold in your hamster and as you give them a treat, maybe say good or well done so they can associate that word.

Then when they're out in the cage and running around in the floor, whenever they hear that word, they should return back to them. Please do this slowly. If the hamsters, you've only just taken home, don't introduce it to a large space straight away.

You need to do this over a period of weeks and once the hamster really feels confident and safe with you. You can also obviously train them to be able to climb around onto your hands and to move around and to jump onto different things. They're not as agile as rats so obviously they're not going to be able to do many clever tricks as them but you can definitely be able to train them to take treats from your hand and to go back into their cage.

Remember, treat training is the best way. Reward when they've been good and repeat the same word. And that's how to train a hamster. .